He was, in handing me the envelope, quietly teaching me that I could do it too — that I did not have to let the discovery of Truett Rennick’s blood in my veins make me one inch less myself, because I was not made of his blood.

I was made of Emmerson’s choice.

Chapter 30 — Torn

I tore the photograph in half.

I put the half with Truett Rennick’s smiling face into the trash, where it belonged, and I kept the half with my young father holding his newborn daughter, because that was the true picture — that had always been the true picture, under the lie.

“Dad,” I said, and Emmerson closed his eyes at the word the way a man closes his eyes in sun after a long time cold, and I understood that the single syllable had done for him what no amount of freedom or restitution or justice ever could.